Hi people!

I have been reading the past posts here for the last few weeks. I found you after an old friend of mine ‘invited’ me to a forum introduction meeting in June. After I said no I did a search on ‘anti Landmark’. There is so much information here, it’s incredible. I had no idea how far the descendants of est had gone, or how many there are. Whew!

I have been saying no to est and Landmark for about 25 years. This same friend did est in the late 1970’s when she moved to California. She came back to town and took me out to lunch to gave me the pitch. I thought she was quite hyper and said no - for the first time.

During the 1990’s four more people I knew did the forum. I went to one ‘graduation’ introduction. I wasn’t impressed. I was approached by several staff people and graduates about whether I was registering. I said no to all of them and when they asked why I said that I had done something similar recently. They weren’t very persistent. Maybe they were new. I did attend an obscure 5-day LGAT in 1989. I’ll tell that story in another thread.

Anyway, the friend I went to the introduction with didn’t bother me about it after that. She moved on to an NLP course.

One of my long distance friends did the Forum and advanced courses. He got to the point where he couldn’t have a conversation with me without spouting jargon and ‘encouraging’ me to attend the Forum. I finally told him that if he couldn’t stop talking about it I would not talk to him anymore. He stopped.

Over the years two other people approached me but took no for an answer without much trouble. Then my old friend called in June. I was surprised because she hadn’t tried to recruit me last year when she started Landmark. But now she is doing SELP. I listened to her sales pitch and couldn’t believe the jargon coming out of her mouth. I told her I would consider it. I thought about it for a few days, but after considering the long hours I ended up saying no. I am manic-depressive - which she knows but doesn’t ‘get’. I told her that one thing I need is SLEEP to maintain my sanity. This is when she got into hard sell and ‘possibilities’. ‘How about if you leave early?’ she said. I knew I would get at least a glare for that and told her I doubted they would go for that. Then she asked, ‘How about if I go with you?’, as if that would get me some sleep! She was desperate to enroll me. I said no again, that I knew there was a high probability of becoming manic from the shear intensity and long hours. She finally gave up but said ‘How are you with that?’ I said ‘Great’.

I WAS great about it. I know what I need to do to stay stable and what to avoid. My latest encounter with Landmark was a good reminder and a great test. It made me realize that I still could make a bad decision that would affect my mind for months - at least.

I have read ‘Outrageous Betrayal’ (thanks to you guys!) and am now reading ‘Releasing The Bonds’ by Steven Hassan. I don’t know when or if I will try to get my friend out of Landmark, but I will know how to talk to her if I do.

Thanks so much for all the information you guys have put out. It has been so helpful to me.

‘Sylvia’

Kudos to you, Sylvia, for saying No!!!! I read [i:650e931c34]Breaking the Bonds [/i:650e931c34]when it first came out. Actually I owe a lot of thanks to Self magazine. Their article, "White-Collar Cults, They Want Your Mind" really helped me put everything together. Even though I had been away from landmark for a while when the article came out, I was having a hard time making sense of it all. That article confirmed my belief that landmark truly was a cult and spring boarded me to getting professional help to deal with what I felt was a near psychotic personality I had developed from my dealings with lec. But unfortunately lec's weird behavior has a way of creeping in from time to time. I picked up [i:650e931c34]Breaking the Bonds[/i:650e931c34] in 2000 and definitely took his advice to get my mind working more.

Just keep saying "no." And the best way to piss them off when they ask why you said no is to say "because I said 'no'." :D

No means no!!

Congrats on recognizing what is going on with these LGAT's, and your own vulnerabilities. That takes enormous skill and personal insight, and you should be congratulated for that too.

Great job keeping your boundaries and shutting these folks down in their recruiting...

No means no!!!

Coz

test

Okay! I think I have posting down.

Thanks Cosmo and Alexis for your encouraging responses. What really bothered and scared me was that I even considered doing the Forum. Even though I said no in the end, it was a wake up call that something was wrong with my thinking. What I needed at that point, when I was considering it, was some inspiration. So, I got some in a roundabout way. Nothing gets me off my butt - mentally - more than getting me angry. Some people say that that is the healthy purpose of anger - to let you know something is wrong, so you can act on it. So I found my way here and was inspired by Hope’s mention about her nutritionist. I have had thoughts about nutrition and done some reading about the nutritional causes of depression, but I have found a lot more on the internet.

I’ll do a separate thread on what I have found in the Recovery section, but if anyone wants to get started, do some searches on topics like ‘magnesium deficiency’, ‘magnesium and depression’, ‘symptoms of Vitamin B deficiency’, etc. I think that this will help anyone with ongoing ‘brain fog’ effects. There is so much information to be had.

I love your ‘’Because I said no.’’, Alexis. It leaves no more room for discussion with the ‘pod people’. I know that sounds rude, but that is how they behave when they are still in trance. It's like trying to talk with someone who is drunk or stoned. You might as well be having a conversation with the nearest wall. Sometimes you have to save yourself first and come back for them later when you are stronger, more aware and more informed.

‘Sylvia’

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Hey people,

My friend who tried to enroll me in Landmark this summer called me the other day. I was having a nap. I looked at my Caller ID and it said . . . . Landmark, so I knew it must be her. She was in the sales office making follow-up calls. She said that the movie, ‘What The Bleep Do We Know?’ is now being distributed nationwide so I would be able to see it soon. She had mentioned this movie when she first called. I researched it on the internet and found out that it was produced by some talented followers of J.Z. Knight/Ramtha. It was being shown in relatively few theaters two months ago. But anyway, it appears that some Landmark salespeople are using it as a ‘hook’ to start their sales pitch these days, (to people who have an interest in quantum physics, etc.) so she mentioned it again when she called me. Other salespeople were of course sitting next to her and could hear what she was saying.

Then she asked how I was doing. I told her I was great and that since I had last talked with her I had been researching the contribution that vitamin and mineral deficiencies make to manic-depression and other ‘mental illnesses’, and that I was so excited that I was feeling so much more energetic and clear minded since I started taking a good vitamin B complex among other things. I reminded her that I had had such bad experiences with mania in the past and that that was why I didn’t want to risk going to a Forum - because I didn’t want THAT to happen again.

Then she asked, in Landmarkese, ‘What does THAT look like?’ So, I started describing when I ‘snapped’ on the last night of a firewalking intensive in 1993. I had described this to her before but she had forgotten that. So I told her how I had an ‘out of body experience’ etc. and finally lost it and broke out into hysterical laughter, and said to the people who I was talking with that I really ‘got it’, that I totally create my own reality. I described the next few days and all of the weird thoughts and sensations I had. So, she finally said, ‘Well that sounds like a spiritual experience to me.’, and I said, ‘Yeah, that’s what it looks like alright, but it’s actually a psychotic/manic experience too.’ I told her that people had told me that I had had a ‘shamanic break’ or a ‘Kundalini awakening’ but that those terms really never led me to a cure, or way to stop the episodes I had every three years or so, and that I finally learned that they are precipitated by stress and adrenaline rushes. I told her about the vitamin/mineral deficiency problem and how that also makes people’s brains more vulnerable to outside influences like hypnosis.

So I went on for about fifteen minutes straight with her just listening. She had heard all of it before. We have talked about my manic experiences, but this time she just listened without interrupting with a bunch of questions which break my train of thought - and hers I might add. (Interrupting with a question can be a ‘stopper’, a way to stop a person from saying something you don’t want to know, a distraction to the speaker and listener.) I told her that I was going to call her sister, who DID go to the Forum this summer, and let her know about the vitamin/mineral theory so that she could pass the information on to her adult ‘obsessive/compulsive’ children, who are also budding alcoholics, in the tradition of the family. Her sister has told me how concerned she is about their situations.

I asked her how her sister liked the Forum and she said ‘She said it gave her her life back.’ She also said that her sister left the Forum early on Friday because her back hurt, and she left early on Saturday night because her son had been in a car accident. What she was trying to point out was that the Landmark people are becoming less interested in people staying through every minute of the day, and participants can leave early if they want to. So I said, ‘Oh that’s nice, but I still would not take the risk with my brain. The long days and intense emotional content would still be too stressful for people like me, which I learned at the ‘Bob Seminar’ and the firewalking seminars, and I don’t need anymore psychotic breakthroughs.’

Then it was ‘time’s up’ for the call and she whispered, ‘Hey, I’m just really making a ‘free’ phone call here. Landmark is paying for this call. I’m heading home now, so I’ll talk to you later.’ I laughed and told her that I would call her.

This last part is hilarious to me because when I lived in California for a year during high school she started using other people’s telephone numbers to pay for her long distance calls to me. The telephone company found out she was doing this and called to ask me about it. I told them that yes she was calling me but I didn’t know that she was using other people’s phone numbers to pay for the calls. She can be such a little criminal sometimes . . .

But, anyway, after reading Steven Hassan’s book I realized that her ‘pre-Landmark’ personality was still intact underneath all of the Landmark jargon, thinking, and sales tactics. So, I was encouraged by her ‘phone time embezzlement’ scheme. Maybe she’s about finished with the Forum and we can discuss the idea of REAL integrity - and lack of it - in both of our lives. I’m so excited. I’ll have to call her soon. I have gotten so much out of NOT doing the Forum. It’s incredible. This post is like my ‘non-graduation’ speech. (laughing)

Sylvia

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